


All We Do is Drive

by Emerla



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Alien Abduction, Aliens, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Established Relationship, F/F, Implied Medical Experimentation, Road Trips, UFOs, and on the lighter side, it's basically science girlfriends having adventures
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-17 05:43:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9307904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emerla/pseuds/Emerla
Summary: Erin and Holtzmann have a close encounter somewhere in the middle of the desert.





	1. Chapter 1

“Holtz. _Holtz._ Wake up!”

She blinks at the green numbers on the dashboard until they come into focus. 11.17. She hasn’t been out long, then; Erin’s still beside her, they’re still in motion, the sky’s still dark and sprinkled with -

That isn’t a star.

She’s awake at once, scrambling for the binoculars and shoving her head and half her body out the window to get a better view.

“You see it, don’t you?” Erin asks.

Holtzmann sees something alright. It’s zipping along much faster than they are, changing directions at improbable angles with no regard for the laws of physics.

“We got ourselves a live one!” she crows, flumping back into her seat.

“Oh, thank god,” Erin says, and floors the gas. The desert speeds by, its eerie moonlit charms forgotten as they eat up the miles.

Holtzmann reaches into the back seat for the night-vision camera.

“It’s a freaking UFO, baby,” she tells the lens, before training it on the bright light ahead. They’re not catching up quite fast enough for her; she turns the camera on Erin before too long.

“How do you feel about becoming a pioneer of modern science, Dr Gilbert?”

“Holtz,” Erin complains, but she can’t keep the smile from her face.

“I think she’s excited,” Holtzmann whispers, before setting the camera down on the dashboard and firing up some of their other equipment. It’s acquired a dusting of sand in the past few weeks, but the only extraterrestrial they've discovered so far is a bat.

“Are you picking up anything unusual yet?” Erin asks, sparing her girlfriend a glance. “Temperature? Radiation? Electromagnetism?”

“Need to be closer,” Holtzmann replies.

“I’m working on it, but I think it’s -”

“LEFT” Holtz yells, and Erin, startled, obeys, veering onto a rough side road that heads towards a distant range of hills.

“God, don’t do that!” she says, her heart racing, but sure enough, the UFO starts to move in the same direction. Its flight is smoother now, almost enough to be mistaken for a plane; it should converge with them in a few miles, if they can keep up.

“How did you know where it’s going?” Erin asks. “Are you getting a reading now?”

Holtz doesn’t look up from whatever she’s fiddling with, her brows furrowing in confusion. “Something is going on over those hills, or I have not put this together right.”

Erin’s enchanted for a moment by the way her voice rises and falls at odd intervals, giving even the most mundane sentence – if Holtz is capable of anything mundane - a musical quality. The UFO tears her attention away, its glow intensifying as they – and presumably it - get closer to their destination. Soon it’s so bright she can barely see where she’s going. The hills are looming ahead, a black mass silhouetted against the stars, and their quarry is about to disappear behind them.

Erin hates letting it out of her sight, as if it no longer exists once she can’t see it, but they’re so close she can hear it, a deep throbbing following the rhythm of her heartbeat. It’s more a feeling than a sound, like they’ve entered a distorted version of reality and her senses are all mixed up. She couldn’t pry her fingers from the wheel if she tried.

They’re approaching the top of the pass when it rises up over the edge like a full moon, giving off a glare so blinding they both fling their arms over their eyes. Erin slams on the breaks and they scream to a halt, the car flooded with light and pulsing so heavily she feels as if her head is about to explode. Her eyes are squeezed shut but it makes no difference; she can see the bones in her fingers, as if the light is corroding her body away.

The craft rises higher and higher, its shape becoming discernible as Erin’s vision returns. In the floodlit road ahead, she thinks she sees a figure, a small dark shape the light bends around but doesn’t dare touch. She wants to look at Holtzmann to be sure they’re sharing this unfathomable moment, but she can’t move, or speak, or do anything but sit and wait as the little grey creature comes closer, and closer, and closer.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two things:  
> I just finished the fic as a whole so updates should be pretty quick, as soon as I manage to edit each chapter.  
> Most of this was written to the Alice Isn’t Dead soundtrack, which is [here](https://disparition.bandcamp.com/album/fire-never-consuming-music-from-alice-isnt-dead) for all your sinister roadtripping needs. Track 11 onward is particularly suited for this fic, if you’d like some musical accompaniment.

There’s something digging into Erin’s back. Holtzmann’s left some gadget in their bed again, she presumes, but when she reaches down to remove it her fingers find dirt where there should be sheets. Above her is blue, and she clicks. They didn’t make it to a motel.

She’s lying in the middle of the road, thirty feet from the car. The doors are agape but there are no signs of movement. Holtzmann’s boots poke out from the other side. She’s using her clasped hands as a pillow and staring up at the sky while her brain recollects itself; Erin helps her up and inspects her for damage.

“Well, you’ve done it, Gilbert,” Holtzmann says. “That may just be the third strangest night of my life. Congratulations.”

She holds her arms out like a penguin and watches her girlfriend brush off her clothes with a bemused expression. It’s not like they’re going to stay clean for long, but it makes Erin feel better so she doesn’t protest.

“We actually saw a UFO. Up close. In person.”

Erin can’t quite believe it. She walks up the road a way, examining the ground. It’s weirdly smooth, like a strong wind blew through and carried off the dust and dried plants. She doesn’t remember leaving the car last night but she must’ve done - there’s a pair of footprints marching over the crest of the hill, in a line considerably straighter than she is.

Back at the car, Holtzmann lets out a cry of dismay. Erin’s at her side in moments, hand on her shoulder as they survey the equipment, or rather, what’s left of it.

“Holtz, I’m sorry.”

It’s been melted into one solid, globular mass, none of it remotely salvageable. Holtzmann checks the trunk. More of the same.

“Please tell me the car still works,” Erin says nervously. Holtzmann props open the hood and pulls a face.

“What’s wrong?” Erin asks.

“Not a single thing,” Holtzmann says, spacing out each word.

Erin breathes a sigh of relief, not entirely warranted by the reality of their situation. No equipment means no solid proof, but after what they saw last night, it’s less of a blow than it might otherwise be. They comb the site as rigorously as they are able, Erin taking copious notes on a pad of paper as they follow their footprints up the road. She finds it unnerving, the thought of her body walking around without her knowing; equally unnerving, that their footprints are the only ones. The trail stops abruptly.

“Only way from here is up,” Holtzmann says, voicing Erin’s own conclusion.

The view from the top of the hill reveals more desert on the other side, hazy in the heat. Holtzmann frowns, swapping round her goggles several times and peering at something Erin doesn’t see. She places a pair on Erin’s head, points her in the right direction.

“What do you see?”

It makes the scenery a little clearer, but other than that…

“Sand?” Erin says, feeling like she’s failing a test.

“And there?” Holtzmann swivels her round 45˚, points to a different spot equally nondescript if a little fuzzier, the shimmering pattern -

“That’s not – the same heat waves?” she says.

“Bingo,” Holtzmann says.

***

The road stops peters out a mile or so from the foot of the hills, merging with the desert again. How far they are from the anomalous spot is difficult to determine; they set out in the general direction, scanning their surroundings at every step.

They’re maybe half an hour from the car when Erin starts to think the heat is getting to her. She’s staring at her feet and there’s a line of beetles running past her boot, scuttling along at top speed. As soon as they reach a certain point, they flicker and vanish; she kneels down for a closer look, but there’s no hole they might be going into. All of them are missing the same leg. It’s just one beetle, she realises, looping around continuously. She reaches out in the same direction, grasping at the air until her fingers encounter slight resistance, like trying to push the matching ends of two magnets together.

“Over here!” she calls. “Look at this!”

She pushes her hand into the barrier. It disappears. Holtzmann whoops in delight and jumps straight through.

“Holtz!” Erin yelps, scrambling up and lurching after her. She has no wish to see her girlfriend’s disembodied head sticking back out to check what’s keeping her, and, knowing Holtzmann, there are a whole array of discomforting experiments with invisibility about to take place.

\- or there might have been, if it weren’t for the fence that appears before them, stretching into the sky. Holtzmann already has her nose pressed to it and is peering at the collection of utilitarian grey buildings on the other side. An enormous dome, opaque and imposing, rises from somewhere in the middle.

“Wanna bet our little friends bunk down here?” Holtzmann says. She hooks her fingers into the fence and begins to climb.

There’s a slight hitch at the top. She tries to sling her leg over and rebounds off something mid-air, almost losing her grip in surprise. It’s another invisible barrier, only this one doesn’t yield to any amount of force, or at least none that Holtzmann can exert.

Still on the ground, Erin lobs a rock over the fence. It, too, bounces back. Carefully noting its point of contact, she tries a few more, sketching out the barrier’s extent. It slopes upwards as high as she can throw, and if there are holes, they aren’t anywhere Holtzmann can reach.

“If the UFO is in there, it must get out somehow,” Erin says when Holtzmann’s slithered back down. “We just have to wait until dark, and -”

“Erin,” Holtzmann says solemnly, placing her hands on her girlfriend’s shoulders and staring into her face like she’s never seen her before. “You’re redder than a tomato. I am removing you from the sun.”

She loops her arm through Erin’s and walks her towards the car.

“I guess we can come back later,” Erin says, unconvinced.

***

There’s a motel a couple of hours down the road looking just like the last one they stayed in, right down to the paint flaking off the sign. It seems to be staffed entirely by an older woman named Jean, whose combination of short grey hair and flannel shirt has Holtzmann winking at Erin.

“Ever seen a UFO?” Holtzmann asks as they’re checking in.

“We drove right through the night and thought we saw something in the sky,” Erin hurriedly clarifies. “It could’ve just been a plane. Is there an airbase somewhere nearby?”

“You into conspiracy theories?” Jean says, raising a knowing eyebrow.

“We’re scientists,” Erin says, not answering the question.

“Uh-huh.”

“But we are interested in potentially extraterrestrial phenomena. From a purely scientific standpoint.”

“Well, scientists or no, you’re a few decades too late,” Jean says. “They knocked the airbase down in the 90s. UFOs stopped after that, and eventually the people looking for them stopped coming through too.” She nods her head at them. “Mostly.”

“Right. Of course. Probably just imagined it,” Erin says, grabbing the proffered key and beating a hasty retreat.

“Holtzmann,” she whispers furiously. “Now she’s going to think we’re - _weirdos_.”

“But we are.” Holtzmann grins and pokes her cheek. “Besides, babe, you’re cute when you’re flustered.”

They pass a row of six identical doors before reaching their room. It’s the exact shade of beige as the dusty view out the window. Holtzmann manages to colonise it in no time at all, an impressive feat given that most of what she brought is still sitting in the car fused into a lump.

Erin settles down to update their logbook, but she’s quickly distracted by the heat, or rather by Holtzmann shedding her clothes in response to it. Clad in little more than a tank top, she starts tinkering with the clunky old fan. It’s not long before she manages to fire it up; it whirs so loudly it sounds perpetually on the verge of giving out, but still does its job surprisingly well. Bored again, Holtzmann rests her chin on Erin’s shoulder and stares at the orderly lines like they’re a foreign language. Erin is an endless source of fascination for her, so neat and tidy even after years of living amidst Holtzmann’s perpetual chaos.

Hyperaware of her girlfriend’s lips so close to her neck, Erin’s letters become increasingly jagged, matching the short sharp rhythm of her breathing. She carefully places the cap back on the pen, closes the book, and twists around to pull Holtzmann into a kiss. In the gap between the first and the second, she tugs Holtz into her lap, snaking one hand around her waist and the other into her unruly hair. Their night outdoors has left its traces; there’s the slight lump of a bruise behind Holtzmann’s ear, and her blonde curls are peppered with grit. It makes her smile against Holtzmann’s mouth.

“What?” Holtzmann asks, leaning back to study Erin’s face. She looks so soft and unguarded, this small woman capable of levelling buildings in a heartbeat. Erin reaches up to brush a thumb across her cheekbone.

“Your hair’s full of sand.”

“Want some?” Holtzmann offers, shaking her head like a wet dog and showering Erin’s clothes in yet another layer of dirt.

“Really?” Erin says, but she can’t even feign exasperation when Holtzmann’s warm weight is pressed against her, so solid and real; she still can’t believe she got this lucky.

“Now you gotta take them off.”

“I’m stuck,” Erin points out. Holtzmann leaps up at once and flops down on the bed. The springs emit a loud shriek. Grin spreading wider, she bounces up and down a few more times.

“Well, there’s always the shower,” Erin says, unbuttoning her shirt.


	3. Chapter 3

They doze away the afternoon, draped across the bed in a sprawl of bare skin. Erin’s woken by the cool air of evening, and lets Holtzmann sleep a little longer as she dresses and packs up the car.

“Holtz, time to go,” she says, shaking her gently.

This time, Holtzmann insists on driving. Erin is more than happy to comply, unwilling to let her own preference for trivial things like roads and basic safety get in the way of their search for the truth. She scans the skies as they near the spot where the previous night’s encounter had occurred; they’re empty, but it’s still early, and they have something more tangible to investigate now. As they crest the hill pass and begin the descent to the plain beyond, her heartrate doubles: their destination is a sparkling mass of lights below, the invisible barrier evidently gone.

Soon the fence is looming above them once again, and they’re up and over it without a hitch. There’s no indication of any living creatures present, but Erin can’t help feeling watched; they hug the shadows, scurrying as quickly as they can across the empty ground between the fence and the outer buildings. There’s a faint humming in the air, like the thrum of energy. It makes the place feel alive, but not in a comforting way; it’s all monochromatic squares of dark walls and floodlit dirt, punctuated by sharp corners and the tingling anxiety nestling in the pit of Erin’s stomach.

If there’s an order to the layout of the compound, it’s not discernible from where they are; they’ve passed the first few blocks, long and low with no distinguishing features, and are huddling in the shadow of another, scoping out the terrain. Holtzmann pokes her head around the corner, a cursory gesture since the place is still utterly deserted, and disappears around it. Erin follows a few steps behind, glancing back automatically; she feels uncomfortably like a deer, unaware that she’s stepping into a hunter’s sights.

Her hand brushes against the wall, and she jerks it away in surprise; the building is warm. She tests it again with a finger; it’s about skin temperature, and vibrating gently. 

Meanwhile, Holtzmann has found a door, which swings open smoothly and silently. She waits for Erin to catch up before stepping inside, where they’re rapidly immersed in utter darkness. Holtzmann chooses that moment to light up the torch right beneath her chin - where it came from, Erin has no idea, but she’s glad of it as they venture further inside. She keeps her left hand on the wall; they’re moving along a narrow corridor but in the absence of much light, the blackness feels like it could be hiding any number of things.

Doorways begin to open up on either side of them. Holtzmann is eager to investigate but the first few just lead to empty rooms. Erin, determined to find her UFO, commandeers the torch and leads them onwards. The thrumming sound grows louder and louder.

“Wait a sec,” Holtzmann says, grabbing Erin’s arm. “Back there.”

She tugs Erin back a few steps to a room they just passed. The beam of the torch glints off something silver. Flat top, spindly legs – it looks uncomfortably like an operating table. The room is full of them, all in orderly rows like tombstones in a graveyard.

One of them is occupied. They almost don’t see it, near the edge of their circle of light, but the gap in the pattern of shiny surfaces draws their attention. Erin tenses as they get closer; it’s starting to resemble a body.

The good news is, the woman is clearly alive; she’s breathing, her skin is warm to the touch, and she looks like she’s sleeping. Her peaceful expression just makes the rest more unsettling. She’s not wearing much and she’s covered in strange marks, mainly across her arms and stomach – tiny dark circles, like bruises but perfectly round.

“There’s another one,” Erin says tightly, as Holtzmann bends to examine the marks. “And another.” She’s scanning the rest of the room when the lights go on, painfully bright.

Erin’s first thought is that they’ve triggered some sort of alarm and now people – or aliens - are about to descend upon them en masse. They don’t, but it doesn’t ease her fear. She feels so exposed, caught here like this amidst the paraphernalia of someone else’s experiment, and she wishes it were dark again.

At least now they can see their surroundings properly. There are windows along the walls, windows into rooms as grey and clinical as this one. Holtzmann weaves her way through the tables for a closer look.

“Found their lab,” she says. “I gotta get in there.”

The only doors are at either end; they make for the far one, which manages to present a far bigger distraction than a potential alien laboratory. They’re at the edge of a vast, hollow dome with a circular hole in the centre, open to the sky. Erin cranes her neck in awe, though she’s still blinking at the glare of the light – light which doesn’t seem to have any specific source.

Holtzmann meanwhile is transfixed by something closer to home: several somethings actually, scurrying about on the far side. She tugs at Erin’s sleeve.

“We got company,” she says.

They’re small, grey, and paying absolutely no attention to Erin and Holtzmann, still standing out in the open. Unless they have poor sight, or hearing, or both, they’re ignoring the pair of humans who’ve made it right to the centre of their base.

Erin’s heading towards them before she even makes a conscious decision to move, her usual common sense overridden by the presence of actual real-life extraterrestrials. They haven’t crossed half the distance when a noise from above draws their attention. The hole in the roof is growing, a circle of darkness blooming in the midst of aggressively bright lights.

“Showtime, baby,” Holtzmann says.

And then she collapses without warning, going limp like a puppet without strings. Erin drops to her knees, painfully conscious of how hard the concrete floor is, but before she can check if her girlfriend is hurt, acute pain knifes through her head and everything goes black.


End file.
